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Hillary Clinton Releases 8 Years Of Tax Returns

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton at a campaign event in Iowa earlier this week.
Scott Olson Getty Images
Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton at a campaign event in Iowa earlier this week.

This post was updated at 6 p.m. ET

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton released eight years worth of tax returns Friday showing, according to her campaign, that she and her husband Bill Clinton paid nearly $44 million in federal taxes since 2007. Clinton said she had earlier released tax returns from 1977 to 2006.

Clinton said in a statement that her family's effective federal tax rate in each of the last two years was above 35 percent. They paid another 9 or 10 percent in state and local taxes, and contributed around 11 percent of their income to charity.

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The couple made much of their income from giving paid speeches.

"We've come a long way from my days going door-to-door for the Children's Defense Fund and earning $16,450 as a young law professor in Arkansas," Hillary Clinton said. "And we owe it to the opportunities America provides."

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush released decades of tax returns earlier this month, showing an effective federal tax rate of roughly 36 percent. Bush lives in Florida, where there is no state income tax.

Hillary Clinton also complained in the statement that the federal tax code is "full of loopholes that allow the wealthiest Americans and most powerful corporations to game the system and avoid paying their fair share." There's little sign that either Clinton or Bush have taken advantage of such loopholes, though. Both candidates' effective tax rates are in the top one percent of all Americans.

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